‘One Battle After Another‘ is the first serious candidate for the next Academy Awards. I couldn’t have expected anything else from Paul Thomas Anderson, a film maker who has already demonstrated his talent for bringing complex stories to the screen that are relevant to the epochs in which his movies take place. Many will say that ‘One Battle After Another‘ is relevant to the immediate current events, to the chaos and polarization of the world we live in. And yet, in fact, the film is inspired by a novel by Thomas Pynchon (whose works Anderson also adapted into the screen with ‘Inherent Vice’) published in 2009, whose story takes place in the 1970s. The script metaphorically exposes the clash between two worlds and the lack of direct mention of contemporary political events gives the film an air of timelessness, probably intentional. This does not mean that most viewers of ‘One Battle After Another‘ will not also think politically about this film. The result will be exciting to some and annoying to others. There will be many viewers who will be enthusiastic about some scenes and bored or angry about others. This was my case as well.
The film depicts a polarized world, in which law enforcement equipped with all possible military technologies confronts a violent protest movement that organizes not only demonstrations but also guerrilla actions, freeing illegal immigrants from prisons near the southern border, robbing banks and bombing buildings in urban centers considered ‘symbols of capitalism’. The conflict is personalized by the confrontation between the violent Colonel Steven J. Lockshaw and the beautiful protester Perfidia, who, together with her lover Bob, are among the leaders of the anarchist-terrorist network that uses its own technologies to fight the system. When Perfidia gives birth to a baby girl (not before continuing to train in machine gun shooting even in the ninth month of pregnancy) the two parents must separate and melt in hiding. Perfidia, suspected of having betrayed her comrades in battle, disappears. 16 years later, an aging Bob, worn out not only by perpetual flight but also by drug use, will have to return to the arena to save his daughter – a rebel in her own way and the one of her generation – who is being pursued by Colonel Lockshaw for his own very personal reasons.
As an action movie, ‘One Battle After Another‘ works perfectly and engages the audience as they witness the constant confrontation between the anarchist rebels and the government forces that are on their trail. A secondary plot line associates the racist and obsessed colonel with a group of oligarchs who manipulate the world according to the model of the purest conspiracy theories. Paul Thomas Anderson seems to have intended to position this film at the intersection of political satire à la Kubrick and films with eccentric and violent heroes à la Tarantino, without losing the mainstream action movie fans. The caricature built by Sean Penn seemed to me too extreme to be effective, but that will probably not prevent him from being nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award and maybe even winning it. Leonardo DiCaprio is much more interesting in the role of the worn-out rebel and his relationship with his daughter (played by newcomer Chase Infiniti) is one of the most human and believable facets of the film. Other formidable actors appear including Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall or Alana Haim about whom I can only say that I would have liked more consistent roles for each of them. The soundtrack created by Jonny Greenwood is exceptional, with long passages that emphasize the action scenes with silent cinema-style accompaniments. ‘One Battle After Another‘ tries to be too much at once and fails in some places. It’s like a firework that explodes with noise and color but quickly goes out and the smoke remains. It will probably be successful with the audiences and at the Academy Awards, but it will faint out, I think, in time, remaining mainly as a document of the way Hollywood tried to say something about the world, from a certain point of view, through a film that also did well at the box office.